Memories
by marielionne
Summary: HrSB: Summer before 6th year. Dumbledore and the Order found a way to retrieve Sirius from behind the veil, but at a high price: He' ll lose all his memories. Sirius will have to learn about the people around him and especially about a certain young witch
1. Back again

Chapter one – Back again 

"Don't forget, he won't remember who he is." Molly Weasley raised her eyebrows at the three teenagers in front of her. "Sirius will still be Sirius, but he won't know it. Dumbledore said, if they would be able to retrieve him from behind the veil, he will be alive and healthy, but he will have lost all memories about his identity. He will of course still have his magical powers and he will know he is a wizard and how the wizarding world works, but everything he experienced In his life, everything that formed who he is, or was, is gone. So be gentle with him and don't ask him too many questions. Leave him time to get used to the situation."

Mrs. Weasley watched the three friends and especially Harry Potter, who was very excited, given the fact that his beloved godfather Sirius Black, whom he had believed to be dead for almost two months, would walk into his old home every minute. Then the brown-haired girl to his right, Hermione Granger, asked a very good question: "So, we are not to ask him about what happened behind the veil. But shall we tell him everything we know about him?" – "Albus said, it would be wise to wait until he wants to find out himself. So as I said, leve him time to… Oh, here they are!"

The great old door of grimmauld Place Numer Twelve had opened and announced the arrival of four people: The old, wizened Albus Dumbledore, wearing a hard-to read-expression, Mr. Weasley, who looked extremely relieved and an exhausted Remus Lupin, who walked next to a tall, black-haired man.

Sirius looked a bit ragged and confused, he looked around himself with a mix of curiosity and doubt. "Sirius!" Harry sprinted down the stairs to greet his godfather, who smiled faintly: "you must be Harry, my, my godson, right?"

His voice still sounded strange to him, and he found it hard to belive that this great, ancient house was his. Dumbledore, Mr. Weasley and Remus Lupin had explained as much as posible to him about his current life and the people in it. He had already met his old headmaster and his old friend, who, along with Mr. Weasley tried to fill him in with a lot of information.

He had seen a lot of photos and had had to memorize loads of names, that didn't have any meaning to him.

So he immediately recognised the tall black haired young man, who was greet ing him enthusiastically. Harry was nearly as tall as himself, with bright green eyes and jet-black hair and he wore an expression that was nervous, but still overwhelmingly happy. Sirius could ot help but smile at the boy, and hug him, as Harry seemed very unsure whether this was the right thing to do. When they broke apart, Sirius had a chance to look at the other people in the hallway.

He saw a short, very kind looking woman, who was unmistakeably Mrs. Weasley and a tall, lanky redhead. Harry's best friend Ron. Both Harry and Ron were somewhere between boy and man, they had grown up since the photos Sirius had seen, had been taken.

He greeted Ron and Mrs. Weasley, when he realised that there was someone else in the room. Standing a few stairs behind Ron, was a girl.

Or better, a young woman, who took Sirius a few moments to recognise. She was tall, with a slim, but also quite female outline. Her long legs were dressed in a pair of jeans, and she was wearing a dark red, would be casual T-Shirt, that completely failed to hide her great figure, and also revealed her delicately tanned, soft skin on her arms and neck. She was looking at him out of great, dark brown eyes.

Her face was not to be called girlishly pretty in a common sense, but interesting and special, dominated by those deep brown eyes and their intelligent look. She had sharply drown, flexible eyebrows, and a high forehead which gave evidence of a deep and intense mind. High, gracefully formed cheekbones lead down to a strong and resolute chin area. The impression of the all-dominant intelligence and determination was foiled by full and sensual lips.

She wasn't wearing any make-up, and she didn't need it, with her skin showing a beautiful summerly glow. Firtstly it was her hair, that made Sirius identify her: Long, untamed, dark brown curls were falling down over her shoulders. Not as bushy as in the picture, but still, Hermione Granger, Harry's other best friend.

But how she had changed. The photograph had shown a girl, pretty and clever looking for sure, but far from the feminine, mature and fascinating charism of the young woman he was looking at right now. "Hello Sirius, I'm Hermione, Harry's friend." – "Yes, I know, I've seen pictures, you know." For a moment, she just smiled at him and he couldn't help but smile back, as suddenly Harry said: "Come and meet the others. They are waiting for you."


	2. Not the same

Chapter two – Not the same 

Sirius felt a jolt of nervousness, but at the same time it made him happy to be greeted like this.

At first the atmosphere was a bit tense, but Mrs. Weasley's excellent meal made everybody lighten up considerably.

Hermione watched everybody to introduce themselves to Sirius, how they tried to make him feel comfortable and at home. Sirius seemed to get more and more confindent and cheerful as the evening went by. From the moment he stepped through the door of the old house he had loathed before (or "in his earlier life" as Hermione secretly called it), she had noticed a change in him.

She tried to locate the source of that. Of course, loosing your memory was a thing that would change everybody. But there was something else… "Yes, I like the house, it is quite impressive. I couldn't believe it was mine when I first saw it." Sirius' voice was drifting over to her.

Sirius likes Grimmauld Place? Hermione thought. Then it struck her. It was exactly the loss of his memories that had caused the change she noticed. But the absence of some memories had a greater effect than the absence of others. Azkaban.

"There is nothing of Azkaban in him any more." Hermione muttered to herself, staring into the fire. He was behaving like an untroubled, free person, something he never could before.

His change was even physically visible: His eyes, Hermione thougt, they have lost their haunted, deadened look, they are much brighter than I've ever seen them. And his whole expression is different. He was nervous because of all the people he didn't know, but then he lost his doubts and now he is just… happy. Happy and relieved about the warm welcome we are giving him.

The old Sirius would have never been able to be just happy without fearing of loosing that feeling again, without doubting the happiness, because he knew how quick it could be gone. He had experieced bertrayal, loss and endless years in a dark cell in Azkaban, under the guard of creatures that existed solely to draw his happiness from him.

But he was able to love even after that, she thought. He loved Harry with all his heart and he had even given his life for him. And despite all the problems it caused him, he had managed to live with what he had been through and this had always impressed her a lot.

Hermione glanced over at Sirius once again and suddenly, he caught her eye. She quickly gave an encouraging smile and looked away, hoping that he had not seen her investigating look. She tried to be happy for him, that he had come back like this and had been given the chance to leave all those dreadful memories behind, but somehow, she felt that something was not right.


	3. Tales

Hi everybody! Here is chapter three. I hope you enjoy it! 

Thanks for your nice reviews, I promise to update regularly!

Marie

Chapter three - Tales 

During the next days, Hermione's feelings were mixed. She was happy for everybody and Harry in particular on the one hand. Harry did not miss a single second of Sirius' company, they were talking non stop and had even started to develop their own private jokes (one of the most popular ones included Kreatcher, much to Hermione's dismay, so it was only a matter of time that another popular one was about Hermione and her SPEW). Hermione liked to watch the pair of them, she enjoyed harry's good mood and Sirius' obvious care for his newfound godson very much. On the other hand, there still was her scepticism. Sirius was happy, no doubt and she was surprised how much she liked watching him smile his dazzling smile and flirting charmingly with every female around. But he was not Sirius. She noticed that the others liked the change that was caused by the lack of his dreadful memories. But nobody seemed to question it like she was, quite the contrary. Sirius had of course started to ask questions about his old life and everybody was thoroughly avoiding the fact that he had spent 12 years in Azkaban. So there were many joyful tales about his mischiefings at school, the old marauder days and his heroic work for the order (although somehow there had never been the right itm to tell him about the fact he was an animagus – _I now, this doesn't make excactly great sense, but I need that one for a scene that has already formed in my mind… And I like it too much to give it up just for logic's sake_).

They had of course explained about his best friend James' death but had failed to give him the crucial information about Wormtail's betrayal and his arresting. And somehow, Hermione noticed, the dates started to blur. Tonks for example answered Sirius' question about his post-Hogwarts-achievements with a lighthearted: "You've dedicated years to the Order!", which was of course, not an entire lie, but also very far from the truth. Especialy Harry didn't want to spoil his godfather's newfound happiness and the others followed his lead persuming that Harry was closest to Sirius and his decision about what to do was right, or at least to be respected.

Hermione herself had some difficulties to act in a way that did not confuse Sirius and that kept her from having to answer too many questions about his life, so se started to avoid private conversation with him. She had not confronted Harry directly yet, but was hinting now and then, that she was not entirely OK with his behavior.

This went on for about a week, but then something happened, that ceased her silent accenptance of Harry's policy. Ron, Harry, Remus, Tonks, Ginny, Sirius and the Weasley twins were sitting aruond the fire chatting and joking the evening away. Hermione was cuddled in one of the big old armchairs she liked so much, hardly ever looking up from her book.

But then, something Harry said (or was it the tone in his voice?) broke her concentration: "Yes, you know, you tried to rescue my parents and me from Voldemort and when you discovered that it was too late, you never gave up to look for their murderers, even after Voldemort had disappeared and everything seemed peaceful. You never gave up. You even worked for the Ministry for three years to make sure that as many Death-Eaters as possible were caught and thrown into Azkaban."

Hermione gasped. She stared at Harry, then looked at the others, only to find them agreeing with him once again. She fixed her eyes on Harry again and when he finally glanced at her, she shook her head at him in disbelief. She knew he had understood, they knew each other long enough, but he just shrugged and continued to talk with the others.

Hermione got up from her chair abruptly, making her heavy book thunder to the floor and causing everybody to look up at her. She sent an icy "Excuse me!" into Harry's direction and left the room. She stormed into the kitchen, out of the backdoor, desperate for fresh air. Ten minutes later, the Weasleys were ordered to bed by their homecoming, tired father and she heard Tonks, Remus and Sirius say goodnight too. The house went quiet and Hermione found it safe to return to the kitchen after 20 minutes.

She found herself face to face with Harry, who just came out of the living room.


	4. Fight

Hello there to all you reviewers. I thank you for yur wonderful reviews, they really made me happy! 

**As you see, you encouraged me a great deal, here are the next chapters. Enjoy! Marie**

Chapter four – Fight 

And everything she had had to hold back for days broke ot of her: "What are you thinking? Or are you thinking at all? Have you ever, once considered where this will lead to?"

Harry stared at her, but he didn't exactly seem surprised "Where what will lead to, Mione?"

"The things you tell him, the stuff you tell Sirius."

"I didn't tell him anything else than I did from the beginning."

"Oh yes, Harry, you did. This time it was different. Before you just left out the less cheerful parts but today you lied!"

Harry shrugged "And? It won't hurt if Sirius knows how courageous he has always been."

"Of course he was courageous, I don't doubt that at all, but he never had the chance to act the hero, because he was imprisoned!"

"But he would have done anything to catch my parents' killers and make sure to land all the Death-Eaters in Azkaban."

Hermione couldn't help but raise her voice: "But he didn't. He was in a cell in Azkaban himself. And you made that stuff up, you LIED TO HIM!"

"What's the differnce? He is certainly happier with my version."

"There is no version, there is only the truth! And this is the only thing that will make him happy at long sight!"

Now it was Harry's turn to get loud: "Oh yeah? You don't happen to remember him, do you? Suffering, haunted and brooding here in those dark rooms. Never free of his memories. And look at him now. He even likes the house."

"The house that stands for everything he had turned his back on! All that pure-blood-rubbish. He had experienced that and he had made his decision, not to become a part of that. He decided to become… himself!"

"But he doesn't KNOW what it was like here. He can make a whole new start, what's wrong with that?"

Hermione angryly flung her hands in the direction of Sirius' bedroom two floors above them: "This is not a new start, because he doesn't have a clue what it was like before. To be really free, you have to be free of something. He has nothing to be free of, he doesn't know."

"And he doesn't need to. It would only make it harder for him! Do you want that? Do you want the old unhappy Sirius back?"

"No, I just want SIRIUS back!" She hadn't intended this to come out that vehemently "I – I mean I want him to know, to understand what has happened to him before. To give him a chance to get over it, to deal with it. Remember, he was getting along better each day, especially when you were around. He was strong, he would never give up."

"And that's OK, Hermione, but he was also never really happy. I mean look at him, you can even see, how good he is now without the Dementors swirlig in the back of his head!"

"Oh yes, that's what counts!" she said sarcastically "He looks good. Brilliant, Harry, a happy looking shell around a shallow spirit, who has lost everything he was!"

"I don't know why you're getting so worked up about that, you didn't even like him very much, you even said he was getting SOFT and tried to live through us, if you are so kind to remember, Hermione!"

"I never, never in my life disliked Sirius! How dare you say something like that? Sure, I disagreed with the way he was edging you on sometimes, how he tended to be reckless. But I always liked him for the way he was passionate and true to himself, I even admired the way he would willingly give everything up. He was so unbelievably brave, Harry, he broke out of Azkaban to save YOU. He lived like a dog for almost a year! He knew that it was worth to give his happiness and twelve years of his life, just because of that he was able to worship live and friendshi and love like he did, because he knew what it was like to have lost al of that! He loved you, despite everything he had been through!"

"He loves me now!" Harry shouted.

"But it is NOT the same! Harry, and you know it! If you don't tell him what he survived to become who he was, to become that brave, strong man, who defeated all his fears just to be with you, he will never be like that again, he will never be Sirius again. But I think he deserves to come back as who he was, his soul deserves that, and if that means to confront him with all those things, than that's what it takes!"

"You don't get it, do you, I just want him to be happy! And besides, everybody agrees with me. Even Dumbledore said, that it was my decision how much I let him know, because I am the one who was closest to Sirius!"

"But, but they can't do that, they are lying!"

"Who is lying?" With a shock, Hermione and Harry turned towards the door, just to see Sirius stand there in T-Shirt and boxers, his long black hair ruffled, his grey eyes puffy. He looked from one to the other, asking again: "What is this about? I heard you shout down here. Who is lying?"

Hermione came to her senses first. For a fleeting moment, she was about to tell him everything, because she could't take the look of him anymore, how he looked so young and faithful, depending on the information others gave him. Her eyes locked with his and in that small second she wanted to rush over to him, comfort him, tell him everything. She couldn't lie.

But she couldn't expose Harry either. "We were fighting about Fred and George and about their plan to smuggle disguised love potions into Hogwarts, pretending they were ink." How hard it was to take her eyes from his.

Harry stared at her, then he quickly joined in: "Yeah, Hermione thinks, they should not do that, because it's against about every school-rule there is."

"Well, hm, I don't think that's such a big crime, could have some interesting effects, though." Sirius grinned and Hermione couldn't help but role her eyes in a very prefect-like way. "If that's all, goodnight, you two!"

"Goodnight!" Harry and Hermione smiled at Sirius and waited until his footsteps had died away. "Thank you, Hermione, I appreciate that you respect my decision."

"Harry, I didn't want to cause a disaster in the middle of the night, but I still don't agree wih the way you treat him."

"OK, but you have no right to interfere, Hermione, he is my godfather. Now goodnight."

Very long after Harry had climbed the stairs to his and Ron's bedroom, Hermione was still standing in the kitchen and thought about those last words. Did she have no right to interfere? Wasn't this about Sirius' sake and not about Harry's? But then she decided to stay loyal to her friend and to try and feel positive about Sirius' happiness, because after all, it was not about her own sake either.


	5. Too close

Chapter five – Too close 

Sirius went upstairs after he had interrupted Harry's conversation with his friend Hermione. He grinned silently to himself about the idea of lovepotions somewhere with so little space, so much time and so many teenagers. His thoughts kept travelling over that subject for a while. He sat down on his bed (he had moved into the master bedroom again after he had returned, something that had felt only natural to everybody) and suddenly he realised that no one had ever told him about his own lovelife.

He hadn't failed to notice that he had a certain effect on the women around. Even Mrs. Weasley, although constantly telling him off for practically everything he did (she had the talent to make everyone around feel like they were one of her children – and guilty about something) couldn't avoid him when he looked smiled at her.

There was, of course, one exception: Hermione Granger, always kind and friendly, but never out of her unique mind's control.

His thoughts lingered on the brown haired girl for a moment. He could understand why Harry liked her so much and confided into her with anything he dealt with. Hermione was a great, loyal friend with strong principles and a good sense of humour. And she was smart, oh yes. She sometimes still puzzled him with her knowledge and her ability to follow the rules of cool logic, although Harry and Ron had lost no time to tell him that she could think of a spell for everything and knew the heaviest books, including one called Hogwarts, A History, by heart. Yet, he had never seen her the way she had been in the kitchen a few minutes ago.

She had seemed very agitated about something and he had the impression that it weren't the twins silly jokes that had made her eyes flash and her hair fly like that. Sirius had her image in his mind and he felt sure that there was a lot more beneath her self-controlled surface than just a clever mind. He even caught himself thinking that the guy who managed to break that surface one day would be very lucky. Realising what he had just thought, he shook his head like a dog wanting to shake water out of it's fur and muttered to himself: "Don't be silly, it't not your business and you should learn to get along with your own life before you wonder about someone else's."

Back to his own life it was. He seemed to have had many friends and people who liked him. But love? There were no tales about the steady girlfriend he had been happy with in his last years in school. No pictures of a marriage, let alone kids. Since his schooldays, he seemed to have spent – was it really that long? – fifteen years alone.

"Well you were, let's say, quite popular at school."

"Yes I know that I had loads of friends, but I asked you about a girl or woman!"

Remus sighed: "Well, to be honest you had loads of girls too in school. Hard to keep track, mate." Sirius let out a soft "Oh" and stared into his breakfast bowl. He was tired, having spent the best part of the last night wondering about his unknown lovelife.

"OK, I that means I was a bit… restless in my schooldays.." This caused Remus to snort into his cornflakes, muttering something about "unbelievable understatement" Sirius chose to ignore this: "… but afterwards, in the last fifteen years, there must have been someone, I mean everyone needs to settle down once, do they?"

"Er, well Sirius, that is hard to.." – "Old habits die hard, Sirius, I guess." Tonks, who had listened to their conversation, said in a would-be-casual voice, shooting Remus a meaningful look. Sirius was confused about this statement, so he joined into Tonk's and Remus' laughter, but inside he grew more and more disappointed. So he had been alone.

Suddenly his thoughts were distacted by a loud shriek and a crash: "This is impossible! I can't carry on like this, no, we have to throw all this rubbish out and clean this place from top to bottom again!" Mrs. Weasley had just made very violent contact with a bunch of pixies that had chosen an old storage for a home.

So they cleaned. "They" meant Harry, Ron, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley and Sirius, because the other Order members had to go to work during the day. At first it was quite dull, but as soon as Hermione had repaired and bewitched an old grammophone, they were driven by very weird but still joyful tunes, that magically reached every corner of the house. Mrs. Weasley had ordered the trio up into the seond floor, were an uninhabited room that was full of drapery, pillows and oldfashioned wizarding clothes (the room raised the suspicion that Kreacher had decided to install a monument to his old masters' fashion sense in there.)

Harry and Ron naturally found all of this too tempting to tidy up, but started a halloween fitting, that soon became a violent pillow fight. Hermione ineffectively tried to stay out of the mayhem for a while just to join in very soon, be it only for defensive reasons, or to get back at Ron for the masses of feathers that hung in her long curls now. "You won't get away with that Ronald!" Hermione aimed as carefully as Ron ducked quickly and the pillow made it's way towards the door, just to land on the entering Sirius' head with a muffeld "Thud!"

Shocked, Hermione stared at the place were Sirius' head was supposed to be, only to find herself looking at a cloud of feathers that took some time to clear up. Ron and Harry roared with laughter when Sirius surfaced again, looking around for the culprit. His eyes came to rest on a flushed Hermione who faintly tried to point at Ron at first but then decided on fleeing instead.

"No, Sirius please! Oh no, you won't dare…" But his grin and the giant fluffy pillow in his hand spoke a different language. She managed to run towards him for the door, sprinted along the corridor, just to find herself cornered. She turned around quickly, about to storm back, and found herself face to face with Sirius, who forced her to back off into the wall.

"So, got you!"

"Please, Sirius, it was an accident!"

"No lame apologies here, you owe me something and I won't let you get away easily."He threateningly raised his pillow-hand.

"OK, do what you want with me, but pleeease have mercy!" Hermione mockingly begged him and looked up at him with her best innocent glance. But…

He was so close. He couldn't take his eyes from her face. Her deep chocolate eyes looked up at him, her lips were slightly parted, he could smell the sweet, silky scent coming from her, could see that perfect, soft skin.For a moment, she held her breath. She could see the tiny silver spots in his grey eyes, could feel his breath that still went faster than usually from chasing her down the corridor. Then, he lifted his hand and gently brushed a feathery curl from her forehead. The tender brush of his hand made her shiver… and come to her senses.

The spell was broken and he backed of, letting her pass him quickly, her head bent. Sirus heard Hermione mutter something about "Kitchen" and "help Mrs. Weasley", then she was gone. He turned around and leaned against the cool wall, his senses still swirling: "What the hell was that?"


	6. Can't look away

Chapter 6 – Can't look away 

Sirius tried to stay away from Hermione after that. When they were busy during the day or preparing breakfast in the mornng, this was easy, but in the evenings, when everybody gathered toghether around the fireplace in the living room, he found his eyes travel toward the young woman far too often.

He caught himself watching her when she was engaged in conversation with one of the others or sitting in her favourite deep armchair a bit in the background, deeply concentrated on a book. He saw the fireshine light up her hair and bring out the beautiful shape of her face. And each time when he reached that point, he turned his gaze away, feeling terrible, guilty and unnormal.

She was his godson's friend after all. Clearly she was too young. Young enough to be my daughter.

Which painfully reminded him once more of his wife-and-kids-free life and he got even deeper into the swirl of doubts that tortured him now. He doubted the person he seemed to be, someone who had never manged to truly fall in love and was now hitting on a sixteen-year-old?  
Suddenly all the tales Harry was telling him about his past life with the work for the order didn't sooth him like they used to do. What had he, after all? A life full of darig adventures, friends, yes, but there was something lacking. The stories everybody was telling him weren't enough anymore, there had to be more, he felt it and he wanted to know.

On the other hand, every time he asked for more information, he was told the same things, in variations of course, but they didn't satisfy him anymore. He sighed and looked into the fire until his eyes started to water and he could close them to shut out everything around him.

Hermione looked up from her book. He was brooding over there, by the fire. With his eyes closed, Sirius had sunken into his armchair. She didn't know what made her watch him over and over again. Sure the incident in the corridor had confused her, but after some thinking, she had come to the conclusion, that she was simply refelecting about Sirius Black too much, especially after the fight she had had with Harry and that this had caused the feeling of wanting him close. _Even closer than he had been, with his deep, warm eyes and that gentle touch of his hands on your face?_ "No!"

Ginny turned her head and looked questioningly at Hermione, who had just realised, that she had spoken out aloud. She shook her head, hoping that this would make the irrational thoughts go away. I have to distract myself, she told herself, this can't go on like that, I'm clearly getting confused and this has to stop.

So she rose from her chair, abandoned her book and sat down on the couch next to Bill Weasley.

Half an hour later, Sirius was streched out his armchair now, he had resurfaced out of his dark thoughts. His eyes immediately travelled over to Hermione's armchair, to find it deserted. His eyes wandered over the scene.  
Harry and Ron were playing a game of wizard chess – with one of Harry's Knights experiencing a rather violent defeat at the hand of Ron's queen, while Tonks, Kingsley Shakelbolt and Remus Lupin were looking through some paperwork for the Ministry.

But Sirius' attention was caught by a conversation that had grown increasingly hot during the last twenty minutes. Ron's brother Bill was gesturing wildly towards Hermione Granger who sat, still calm, but even more upright and tense than usually, on the couch next to him.

"So you want to say that he shoud have been released?"  
Hermione shook her head: "No, of course I'm NOT saying he should have been released, but I say that one should have given him a fair trial in order to find out whether he was really guilty."  
"But he was. Barty Crouch was guilty and everybody knows that now. He would have gone back to Azkaban anyway." Sirius felt goosebumps an his forearms. A sudden cold was creeping over his skin.  
"But he deserved a fair trial, even after his confession in Dumbledore's office!"  
Bill shook his head impatiently: "What good would that have done? There was nothing to ask anymore."  
"I think you're wrong, Bill! I think one should have investigated why he had done those things, how it could have come so far with him!"  
"Oh, so you wanna say that you have to search in the past of every criminal and every murderer until you find the reasons why they have turned into villains?"  
"Basically, yes." Hermione had chosen to overhear the sarcastic tone in his voice.  
"But, Hermione, honestly, don't you think this would be far to much fuss for people like that?" –  
"This is exactly what I'm saying! _People like that. _Do you hear yourself? They aren't all the same and everybody deserves to asked for his reasons anyway. And if it's only to understand and to prevent others from doing the same."   
Bill hissed angrily: "I do hear myself talking, don't worry. So let's say you caught You-Know-Who, and now tell me that you would question him about his childhood first instead of handing him to the Dementors straight away?" Cold, creeping through Sirius body again.  
Hermione said, perfecty calm: "Yes, I would."   
Bill stared at her. "You must be kidding. He deserves Azkaban, if not worse."  
"What he deserves or not is not to be decided by you, or me, but by impartial judges. And no, I'm not kidding. I simply think that every soul deserves justice. No matter how evil and twisted it may be."  
"But him, he killed so many innocent people. One should get rid of him, instantly and for all times!"  
Hermione seemed to be pondering her words: "I'm not saying Voldemort is innocent, I would never say something like that! But it is my believe that everybody deserves a fail trial. Imagine you have someone, who's case isn't as clear as Voldemort's. If you don't stage a fair trial, do you know who you could throw into Azkaban? An INNOCENT MAN!" Sirius felt her eyes sweep past him for an moment, but she quickly looked away, trying to calm herself.

Bill had fallen silent after her last word, obviously in thought. Then he said. "In this point, you may be right, Hermione. But I still think, that there are some things that cannot be forgiven or understood, no matter how much you research about the person's reasons."

"So we disagree here." Hermione had a slighly sad look an her face. In this moment, Mrs. Weasley appeared and shooed the younger ones to bed. When Hermione said goodnight, Sirius once more had the impression that she was looking at him, with a dark sadness in her eyes.


	7. Nightmares

Chapter 7 - Nightmares 

The same night, Hermione was woken by a piercing scream.

Trying to comprehend the situation, Hermione realized that the scream had come from the room next door. Sirius' room. Quickly checking if Ginny was still asleep, Hermione slid out of bed. She shivered a bit, given her thin, shoulderfree shirt and matching pants. In the summer she had liked the color, a dark violet that gave her tanned skin a nice glow and the light material very much, but as autumn was approaching, warmer nichtclothes would be more appropriate. Trying not to make to much noise on the old floorboards, Hermione opened her door, closed it carefully and tiptoed towards Sirius' room.

She gently pressed the doorknob, findig it locked. She decided to think about this detail later and quickly drew out her wand. "Alohomora!". Quietly, the door opened and revealed a sight that made Hermione sharply drow her breath.

Sirius was sitting in his bed, bolt upright and panting, clutching his chest, staring at her, with a haunted, scared look on his face. His long dark hair was hanging wildly around his unshaven face. He looked older than he had done since he had come back, his eyes were deeper and darker than she had seen them in years, his expression gave evidence of terrible things he had seen.

With a shock, Hermione realised that he looked more like his old self. Yet there was a difference: The Sirius Hermione had known was sure suffering of the dreadful memories the deaths of his best friends and Azkaban prison had given him, but he had become strong, he was understanding the things that had happened to him. He was thinking them over, learning more and more to live with them. The Sirius Hermione saw now was just scared out of his wits, obvoiusly not capable of dealing with whatever had caused him to scream.

Hermione rushed over to his bed. "Sirius, what happened?"

He stared at her: "what are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"Oh, never mind Sirius. I heared you scream, what happended? Do you need help?" She sat down on his bedside.

He still stared at her, then his eyes blackened, like a dark chamber had opened behind them: "Dementors", he whispered.

"What?" Hermione breathed, "there was a Dementor? No, surely there was no Dementor here, what would they do here, they could never.."

"I saw Dementors, coming after me, chasing me, chasing my soul, bringing things out in my mind… Terrible things." His voice broke.

"A dream, right?"

Sirius nodded slowly. Then he said: "But, but it didn't feel like one. It didn't feel like a dream. It was much closer, everywhere, in my head, in my heart, I could feel the cold. I've dreamed before and this was something different…"

Hermione knew what was coming and silently she hoped he would somehow not come across this thought. But her hopes were shattered: "Was it a memory?" Sirius looked at her, questioning: "Hermione, could that have been a memory?"

She closed her eyes to stop them from revealing that she had had the exact same thought from the moment he had mentioned the Azkaban guards. "No, it could not be a memory. You have never had contact with any Dementors, had you?" She tried to sound confident, calming.

But he seemend to be beyond the point of believing shallow reassurings. He suddenly grabbed Hermione's arm, forcing her to look him in the eye: "I was not a dream. I know it. If you know anything, tell me."

"No, Sirius, I don't, I can't tell you anything, I'm sure, it was just a dream."

"Rubbish!", his grab hardened, he pulled her closer, still not allowing her to look away: "I can see that you know something I don't, so tell me, I have a right to know!"

"Sirius, let me go!", but her struggle just made him more insisting, as she tried to free herself, he grabbed both her shoulders, pulling her towards him, until their faces were just inces apart.

Hermione could feel the heat coming from the desperate man in front of her, his hands were like fire on her skin. His eyes locked with hers and his intense gaze made her hold her breath. For a second, she wondered why he did not scare her, why his touch felt somehow right, but then he broke the moment, nearly shouting at her: "Tell me what you know! I need to know, something is not right with me, I am not what everybody is trying to make me believe I am. And you know it, but you keep it from me, how can you do this to me, you LIAR!"

"Sirius, please!", Hermione could hardly hold back her tears, seeing him so desperate and angry. This made him come to his senses. Suddenly Sirius realised what he was doing and devastated, he let go of the girl in front of him, who was now shaking with surpressed tears, her head bent.

He sank back into his cushions, lost and weak: "I am sorry, I didn't want to hurt you. You always seemed to understand me more than the others. I am just… I can't deal with this. Those dreams or whatever they are, they keep coming back. Every night."

"What?" Hermione looked up "how long is this going on like that? Is that why you've locked your door?"

"Hmhm" he hesitated. "Yes. I am sorry, but I could not tell anyone. I don't understand what happened to me. After I came back from, from there, everything seemed to be fine. I could not remember who I was, but I had hope, that someday soon, things would be right again. And everybody was so friendly and caring, that felt so good. And seing Harry that happy, I mean, how can you possibly not want that boy to be happy?" Hermione gave a slight smile.

"But then, things began to change. The more all of you told me about myself, the more I wanted to know, and I tried to find memories of my own. And then, about a month ago those dreams started. Firstly, they were just like shadows, you know, indistinct and I tried not to put to much into them. But then, they grew stronger, more real. And the more real they became, the more I wanted to believe the stories you told me about myself, because I feared that somehow, there could be more about those things I was seeing, that they could be…"

"The real thing?" Hermoine asked.

"Yes. And I began to suspect, that not everthing you told me was true. As much as I feared the things I saw at night, I still wanted to see them, because if those are really my memories, I will have to know, right?"

Hermione could not bring herself to tell hm how much she agreed, so she remained silent, watching Sirius.

"And then there was you. From the beginning I had the impression, that you were somehow not as – enthusiastic about telling me about my past as the others were. At first I thougt, you just did not like me, but the way you treated me spoke against this." Hermione swallowed. "You were always so kind and understanding. And then I felt that you were disagreeing with the others about something. I also ran into an argument you had with Harry, remember? At first I believed your story about the twins, but now… It was about me, right?"

"Sirius, please, don't, I can't tell you more than the others can."

"So there is more?"

"No, that's not what I meant, I just want to say, that you should not rely on what a single person tells you, that could be mis…"

"Hermione, I asked you whether there was more." Sirius interrupted her "And I know, that I can trust you, for some reason, more than I can trust the others. Please, tell me the truth."

Again, his gaze had found her and he was not willing to let her go. Something struck him about her, as she was sitting there, next to him on his bed. Her presence was soothing, right, but it didn't end there.

The extraordinary intelligence of Hermione Granger, her way of fighting for others' rights, her clear principles and matureness. It made him forget that she was barely seventeen, made her a person he could trust completely. Moreover, she was kind and caring, and sometimes she looked at him in a way he found to dangerous to classify. He did not want her to stop, he found a certain security in those dark brown eyes, a place that belonged exclusively to him, and he had the feeling that he would find himself in there.

"Hermione, please, help me."

She looked at him, lost for words. She knew that she should not give him what he wanted, that she could not tell him about Sirius Black's past. But on the other hand, she could not let him alone with those dreadful memories that kept coming back at him. He would never be able to deal with what he was about to see, unless he understood how he experienced all of this in his earlier life.

And she made a decision.

"I will."

"Thank you..."

"But - you have to promise me, that you won't tell anyone about this. You will be like you always are. I will be able to explain some of those dreams to you. You will understand how you can see those things. But you will let me decide, how much I tell you and when I do it."

Sirius nodded. "So it is true, I am not who…"

"Not now. I have to think about this, before we start. I don't want to be too quick, because you will need to understand some things, but then, I am sure, you will be able to deal with everything that comes to you, in dreams or not."

"But how am I supposed to sleep now? You give me a little bit and then I shall be calm and wait for more?"

"This is how it works, sorry. You will understand. But please, let me think now. And not a word to anyone."

Sirius looked at her, Hermione looked back at him and for a fleeting moment, she thought, he would grab her shoulders again and attack her for information.

But then, he nodded. "Alright. I thank you, Hermione."

"I will visit you tomorrow night. I think this will be the most practical way of avoiding the others. And I know an exellent spell to make sure nobody will hear us."

Sirius grinned. Of course she knew a spell. She was Hermione.

She rose from his bed: "Good night, or better: good dawn, it will be sunrise in a few minutes." And she quietly glid through the door.


	8. Getting true

Chapter 8 – Getting true 

Sirius couldn't sleep this night and he didn't manage to come to rest the next one. He eagerly awaited his door to open and when it finally did, he was so relieved that he had to restrain himself not to rush forward and hug the girl that was entering his room. She was wearing the same nightthings as the past night just with a big, wooly, white jacket thrown over it. Her hair was a bit tangled, even wilder than usually, from having to wait in bed.

"I'm sorry, I had to make sure that Ginny really was asleep. How do you feel?" Hermione looked at him searchingly, as though she was trying to read his mind.

"Don't worry, I'm… no, I'm not fine, I'm excited. And a bit scared."

Of course he was. Sirius had no clue what was coming, but he was bound to expect something dreadful, given that everybody had tried to hide it from him. Hermione poundered her words, hoping he would understand. "When I start telling you what I know now, I sure want to fill you up with the facts, but I mainly want you to understand."

"Understand what?"

"Yourself." She said simply. "And how all of that could happen to you. And how you stayed who you are. Were. And will be again, I'm sure."

Sirius was surprised. "So you think, I can be the person who I was? But, I thought all my memories were lost."

"As far as I know - and that's from the best books covering that issue– it's not that simple. You have a really impressive library by the way, I was very pleased" Thrilled out of your wits would get the point far better, judging from the look on your face, Sirius thought, smiling to himself.

"Although, I think some of the books seem to have taken in the atmosphere of the house a bit to much." Hermione continued. "One of them started to shriek 'Thou shalt not touch those noble pages, you filthy mudblood!' as soon as I tried to open it." She said that like she was talking about a very courious scientific matter.

Sirius was embarassed. "Sorry, I didn't know, that must have been terrible for you. How could that happen, nobody could have possibly wanted a book to insult a reader like that, could they?."

Hermione looked at him, eyebrows sharply raised. Sirius Black was naïve. This definitely had to stop. "Oh no, it was OK, I hadn't expected much of 'A Thousand Ways of Torture and the Joy of It' anyway." Sirius couldn't help but grin.

"But what I was about to say, memories are a complicated matter, they aren't easily separated from their owner, as we can see from your dreams. They will try and come back, no matter how. And this is why we have to be very careful. I think I somehow got an idea about that memory-business. I feel, if I give you just the information, without giving you time and help to adjust yourself to it, your mind will be kind of conquered by your old memories, without being counterbalanced by understanding. You will, like, invite your memories to come back, and they will, uncontrolled, once we've started it. So we have to work on you understanding and accepting all those things, because otherwise you probably won't be able to deal with them like you used to. So, I decided the best way to do it is to give you the information I have bit by bit and not all at once. But at first, there is something I have to ask you."

"Go ahead, Hermione." How good it felt to speak her name. It made Sirius realise she was actually here, in his room, sitting opposite him on his bed.

"As I have only met you three years ago, I don't know everything about you. There are periods missing, especially from the earlier days. So I wanted to ask if you would consider to request for help from someone who knew you then."

"Who do you mean?" Sirius wondered if the person's identity would make any difference, as he felt he wanted this between him and Hermione.

"Remus."

"No way. I like him and I feel that there is a special bond between us, but I don't want him in here."

There was a moment of silence where they just looked at each other. Hermione felt a jolt in her stomach, but she didn't break the connection. She understood what he meant.

She felt comfortable here alone with Sirius. It was a room for their own, where they could shut out the rest of the world and listen to nothing but each other. She didn't have to worry about Harry in here and what he would say about her telling Sirius what he, Harry wanted to keep from him. In here there were no questions about her thougts and attitudes, even her own doubts about what she was about to do were vanishing.

"OK, I think I will start with what I know about your youth. You grew up in this house, this is what you know already." Sirius nodded.

"But there are things about your parents and family that nobody told you about so far." Hermione continued. "You know about the whole pure-blood-stuff, do you? Well your parents were especially proud of being one of the oldest and purest pure-blood-families in the country." And she told him the story he had told Harry, Ron and her when they had first visited this house in the previous summer. She talked about his parents and brother, about how they thought Voldemort was right and that pure-bloods should be in charge. Sirius listened eagerly, his expression quite unreadable. At a few points, he swallowed hard, but he never interrupted her. Hermione decided to stop right before the part of Regulus Black's fate.

"Do you have any questions?"

Sirius breathed in very deeply. Then he said: "So, I didn't have a very joyful childhood. And I'm from one of the darkest families you can possibly imagine."

Hermione looked at him, unsure where this was going. "Yes, that's it. In a nutshell."

And shook his head in disbelief "But, how come, I'm here then? I mean with that background I would rather expect me to be surrounded by a bunch of Death-Eaters. I mean, nobody here could possibly have wanted a person like.. like THAT in here?" He shook his head again. Hermione tried to interrupt, but he came across her.

"Is there anybody left? I mean, from my family? Where is my brother?"

"I'm afraid, Sirius, but he was… murdered. By Voldemort himself."

His eyes became hollow, he stared into the fire. Hermione could see the reflection of the flames in his eyes and she felt a sudden rush to take him into her arms, to tell him that everything as going to OK.

After several moments he finally looked at her.

"This means that I am the last Black?"

"Yes. The house and everything in it is yours, there are no direct relatives left. Except some cousins, like Tonks, Molly Weasley and of course Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy."

At the sound of the last two names, Sirius snorted in a very Sirius-like way "Oh, but I don't exactly care about being related to _that_ part of the family."

Hermione couldn't help but grin a bit. "Well this is just the attitude you've had before. You chose, see. You left all of this behind to go and live with your best friend James Potter and to join the order of course."

He watched her closely while she said this, still looking stubborn and dark. "Well if you mean.. I just think that it is hard to make up for such a backgroud."

"No, it isn't!" Hermione sain insistingly. "Don't you see? There may have been the Sirius from this house, who could have been easily taken over by all that dark stuff that was going on here. But there also was the Sirius who saw the madness in all this. And he chose. You chose. You left here, at the age of sixteen, Sirius! You chose your own company, James and Remus and the Weasleys and…"

"You." It took only this one syllable to silent her. Sirius smiled at her, a warm and affectionate smile that made her feel nonplussed.

"I understand what you want to tell me, Hermione and you have no idea what it means to me." Hermione felt the corners of her eyes burn and she quickly looked the other way. But Sirius didn't let go.

"I should not have attacked you in the first place. You are doing nothing but telling me the truth and I will be forever grateful for this, no matter what stories are still to come." He wanted to touch her hand, to make her look at him again. He wanted to show her how much he owed her for this, for acting against her best friend's will just for him.

But suddenly, Hermione got up from the bed. She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand this closeness that made her loose control, like it nearly had in the corridor, when he had been too close.

"Goodnight, Sirius. I see you tomorrow night, same time." And she was gone.

-------------------

Trying hard to keep calm, Hermione arrived in her bed a few moments later. She lay on top of the sheets, breathing hardly, feeling too hot to get under the blanket. The thoughts were spinning in her mind.  
What happened to her? Was she going mad?  
The way Sirius made her feel was troubling her, she could not handle it. Her emotions had changed so rapidly, she could not make out any logic in them. At first she had only seen a man who had been treated injustly. Her instinct had told her that she needed to help him, that she needed to save him from being lied to, from suffering when he found out the truth by himself, which she was convinced would have happened sooner or later.But then there was something else. Everytime he looked her in the eyes, she felt herself getting nervous, his gaze made her insecure, made her loose herself.  
Deep down, she knew what it was, but she couldn't admit it, she couldn't even think it, because this would mean at least that she was considering it. She shook her head, desperate to get rid of those emotions, but she couldn't and somewhere in the back of her head there was a little voice acusing her of not trying hard enough.  
You don't want to get rid of it. It feels too good. He feels too good. When he looks at you, you feel at home and in some exciting place you didn't even dare to dream about in the same time.  
She hung her head. "It would be better if I didn't visit you anymore." Hermione whispered into the dark. But she couldn't do that either. He was relying on her. 'For Sirius, I am the link to his old self and he needs me. If I leave him now, he will feel more lost then ever, I have to finish what I started.' Hermione thought. And she decided to continue their secret meetings, even though she promised herself to shut out every inappropriate feeling for Sirius and to focus entirely on helping him getting his memory back.

The next morning Sirius was sitting in the kitchen, spilling toast crumbs all over his front. He couldn't manage to focus on anything he was doing, because there was something worrying him. Hermione had not come down to breakfast yet and Sirius was both eagerely awaiting and dreading her entry, because he was unsure about how she would behave after what had happened last night.  
He had seen the fear in her eyes when they had again wandered on the edge of something he didn't dare to think about just yet. She knew it would be oh so wrong, there was no mistaking this. Sirius had given this a lot of thought after she had fled his bedroom and he had come to the conclusion that he had not imagined the tension between them, that she had felt it too and that this had been the reason she had left him so suddenly.  
He was torn between not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable and the desire to get closer to her. She was intriguing him more and more with each moment he knew her. At first he had been fascinated mainly by her character and mind, but he couldn't help but catching himself watching her every movement lately. Just seeing her sit and read caused him to wonder what it would feel like to stand behind her and stroke her hair from her shoulders. He felt terribly guilty and disgusted by himself because of those thoughts, given that she was Harry's best friend and not even of age.  
But then… she was so beautiful and he wanted to be close to her, he wanted to touch her, hold her and he didn't need a single memory to know that this had nothing to do with gratitude.

"Morning Hermione! How was your night?" Ron's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. The redhead held the door for Hermione in mockingly gentleman-like way. She passed him saying: "Thank you, Ronald, I slept soundly. How very thoughtful that you should ask"  
"I am most glad to hear that!" He smiled at her, Hermione smiled back, whilst Sirius felt his eyes narrow as he saw the two of them stand there. Then he noticed how silly he was behaving and felt ashamed immediately.

Throughout the whole breakfast, Sirius felt Hermione avoiding his eyes. It was like he had feared. The events of the last night had made her too uncomfortable to ever talk to him again. Suddenly, he felt lost and lonely and the need to get away from the noisy crowd around the table. He murmured an excuse to Remus, who was seated next to him and left the room without attempting to look at Hermione again.

Hermione was hurt to see Sirius leave the table like that. She had wondered how he would act after last night. She had hoped to find him as sensible and relaxed like she wished to be, but was utterly disappointed. He hadn't even greeted her, hadn't looked at her once. The fear that he might be mad at her dawned inside her, or that he might find her silly and didn't want to work with a confused schoolgirl anymore. The excitement to see him had turned into a deep insecurity she couldn't manage to get rid of for the whole day.

At night, Sirius was sitting in his room. He had pretended to be reading and not wanting to be disturbed. But since ten minutes, he had even given up pretending to be absorbed in the book he was holding and was staring at the door. Last night, Hermione had entered his room around this hour. Sirius wanted to see her, he wanted to hear what she had to tell him. And he wanted to be with her.  
But she didn't come. Hour after hour passed and when Sirius finally fell asleep it was almost dawning.

Hermione woke with a start. Ginny was still asleep, it was very early in the morning. She felt horrible. Even though yesterday evening the decision not to visit Sirius that night and to let things rest for a while had seemed a good idea, it didn't look like such a good idea from this side of the night. She had been lost in weird dreams all night and a headache joined her feelings of guilt toward Sirius. Hermione felt like she had left him alone.

Those feelings (including the headache) didn't leave her for the entire day. Again, she didn't see much of Sirius, as he always seemed to rush out of the rooms she was entering. Slowly, Hermione felt her sense of guilt turn into anger. She felt annoyed by him behaving like that. She wanted to face him and tell him that he had no right to leave her alone with this.

"Yes, I am sure that you will find those nice tabecloths in that closet next to the library, please would you be so kind to fetch them for me, I want to see, if they are still OK." There was no way of denying Mrs. Weasley's wish. Sirius sighed and stumped up the stairs. His bad mood made him search the closet more noisily than required."Is it REALLY necessary to make such a racket out there?" an angry voice shouted from inside the library. Before Sirius could react, the door flew open and he found himself face-to-face with Hermione, her hair drawn into an untidy ponytail, a massive volume called "Insinde the Magical Mind" in her arms. His heart leapt. "I – I am sorry…"  
But she cut across him: "There is no need to be so loud out here, I am trying to concentrate, if you don't mind!"  
Sirius silented her with a long look: "_This_ is not what I am sorry about. I am sure, if you can read in a noisy comon room, you can read here too."  
"What?" Hermione was lost for words. And this meant something, Sirius smiled to himself.  
"I mean that I am sorry for the_ last two days_. I was so stupid not to talk to you just because I didn't know what to say."  
"You – you didn't know…? This means you weren't mad at me after all?"  
"Why should I be mad at you? You are helping me. But I can understand if you were mad at me." Sirius looked at her, waiting for an answer.  
Hermione seemed more relieved that anything else: "Well, I was mad at you not talking to me, but that had nothing to do with… um… with you know – what I want to say is that I accept your apology and I hope you accept mine too."  
"I do, sure." Sirius smiled. Hermione was very glad that he didn't try to find out what she had intended to say in the first place.  
"Will you visit me again tonight?" Sirius asked.  
Hermione smiled, holding up the heavy book: "What do you think I am reading this for?"

And this night, Sirius' bedroom door opened right on schedule.


	9. Barking

Chapter 9 - Barking

The next few nights, Hermione filled Sirius in with all she knew about his youth, his friends and his school-career. Sirius caught himself growing a little tired with her emphasising his being an excellent student at Hogwarts, but it also made him smile, it was so very Hermione and he liked that more with every minute.

"I know that Harry told you why Remus resigned after his year of being our Defence against the Dark Arts teacher."

Sirius nodded. "Yeah. Remus told me himself. He's a werewolf." Hermione smiled at how casual Sirius was taking this, a relaxed reaction like this to such an information was quite rare in the wizarding world.

"He was already a werewolf when you were still at school with him and James and, and Peter." Hermione was always worried about the moment that she would have to tell him what had become of his friend Peter. "And you three found out about that and moreover, you managed to be with him even while his transformations."

Sirius goggled at her: "Let me guess, we let him bite us and opened up a nice little werewolf-gang."

Hermione scowled: "Don't be silly. But, well you are not so far from the truth. You did oopen a little gang and that gang did consist only of animals, even though it did not involve anyone biting their friends."

"Sounds very, very interesting. Go on, what did we do?" Hermione saw a certain miscievious twinkle in his eyes. She sighed: "You all became Animagi."

"What? This is supposed to be difficult like hell and you have to register and all, don't you?"

"Unregistered Animagi, I forgot." Hermione said curtly, unable to hide her disapproval.

Sirius face split into a grin: "So, you tell me that we managed to become Animagi, that the Ministry had no idea about it, that our little zoo was running around with a werewolf once a month and all that right under Albus Dumbledore's nose?" Hermione nodded, suspecting what would come next. "Brilliant!" Sirius looked very pleased with himself.

"Well, I don't want to comment this, Sirius, even though, becoming an Animagus is quite an impressive academic achievement, you –"

"Alright, alright" Sirius was more interested in the practical side. "What animals could we change into?"

Hermione counted: "James was a stag, Peter a rat and you were a large, black dog, not much unlike a Grim, by the way."

"This means that, I should still be able to do it, shouldn't I?" Sirius looked excited.

"I do reckon, yes." Hermione had given this a lot of thought, but as Sirius still semed to possess all his other magical powers, why should this particular ability have left him? "Go on, try it." Hermione couldn't deny that she was interested if he really could still do it.

"What do I have to do?" Sirius seemed very keen, but a bit lost at the moment. He had risen from the bed they used to sit on while Hermione's visits and was standing in the room, bare-feeted, dressed in a pair of loose dark jeans and a black T-Shirt. Hermione shrugged. "There is no incantation, it says you can turn into your Animal at will. I think you have to concentrate very hard, that's what Professor McGonagall said when we covered Animagi."

Sirius concentrated. Nothing happended. "I don't even know how I looked like as a dog."

"Well, you were very large, a bit bear-like and jet black, like your own hair, with pale eyes." Suddenly, Hermione remembered something. "Wait, I'll be back in a second!" And she dashed out of the room.

A few moments later, Hermione quietly shut the door again, triumphantly holding up a massive volume, reading "Seeing the Dark Side".

"Alright." Sirius said. "what good will a book about dark omens do?"

"Didn't you pay attention? Look" Hermione flipped through the pages and found what she was looking for. "I am personally not so much into that foggy Divination stuff, but your dog lookes remarkably like this." And she showed Sirius a picture of a large, black death omen – the Grim.

"A bit frightening, don't you think?" Sirius exemined the illustration.

"_You_ look a good deal friendlier, most of the time, but when you are angry, you get quite close to this."

With the image of the Grim in his mind, Sirius tried again. He tried to imgine what running around as a dog must feel like, he tried to remember every bark he had ever heard and suddenly...

"YES!" Hermione yelled, just to clap her hands over her mouth, to make herself go quiet.

Sirius stood there, bewildered. He was on all four, but it didn't feel awkward, but very right. He wagged his tail. Wait. He had a tail? He turned around just to catch a glimpse of a jet-black tail gliding out of sight immediately. He turned faster in order to catch it, though for a fleeting moment that this was completely silly dog behaviour, but didn't give a damn. This was fun. He ran a few circles around the bed, astonished by his speed and the joy of running, jumped onto the bed, just to be shooed down by a laughing Hermione. She was laughing out loudly now, happy to see Sirius so extatic and joyful, hoping at the same time that the silencing charm she had cast over the room would proof itself effective. Sirius pleased himself ith speeding around the room, eventually barking, then he playfully started chasing Hermione around. She joined in on the game – Sirius didn't really leave her any choice – and was soon panting and laughing. She was getting hot, so she removed the thick wooly jacket she used to have wrapped around her and was left only with her thin pyjama pants and the matching shoulderfree shirt. She threw the jacket at the black dog that approached her once more. "No, don't you dare come after me any more! This is enough, Sirius, I will leave, I tell you!"  
Finger raised threateningly, Hermione took a step towards the door, but Sirius was quicker. He rose onto his back paws and jumped at Hermione's shoulders to stop her. He obviously had been a little too enthusiastic because they over-balanced and Hermione fell, shrieking, backwards towards the floor.

She didn't hit the floor as hard as she had expected to and it didn't take her long to figure out why.  
Sirius had transformed again while they had fallen and had protected her head with his one arm and had intercepted the collision with his other arm. Panting slightly, he looked down into her Hermione's eyes. Sirius realised that he was lying on his bedroom floor, with Hermione in his arms, her face only inches from his. He could smell her, he could feel her warm and female body next to his, his hands were on the soft skin of bare arms. He sunk into her deep brown eyes and hoped he would never have to surface again. Hermione felt all the cautions slip away from her as she felt him so close. It was the same sensation as when he had cornered her in the corridor. There was only one thing she could think of, she wanted him to bend down and kiss her. His soft lips were so close, she could almost taste them, and Sirius srong arms around her felt so right. Hermione could feel his heart beat, she felt hers skip a beat as he slowly bent down to her lips –

When suddenly they both winced at the sound they heard from the door. "The door-" Sirius' eyes had widened alarmedly.

"Sealed" Hermione said, scrambling to get up from the floor. "I knew it, we where too loud for that stupid silencing charm!"

They both stood in the middle of the room, listening hard. Hermione knew, if someone knocked and found her here, there would be some tricky qustions to answer. She imagined how outraged Harry would be with her if he found out what she was doing.

Sirius slowly and soundlessly moved towards the door, finally deciding that there was nobody out there. Then they heard footsteps - moving up the staircase. Hermione sighed in relief and sat down on the bed. "That was close. Imagine someone had burst in…" At that very moment she realised herself what the intruder might have seen and closed her eyes in horror. "They would have been mistaken." She muttered to herself.

"What do you mean?" Sirius somehow didn't really look at her.

"Nothing, I just – Never mind. I should go."

"Yeah, I think I need some sleep. Goddnight!"

"Night." Hermione found her hand still trembling when she reached for the doorknob.

-------------

Remus watched Sirius suspiciously at the next dinner when everybody was gathered around the table again. He had the impression that his friend couldn't get his eyes from Hermione Granger. Sirius followed her every move when she wasn't looking, he lokked away when she was and he jumped every time she spoke, as though expecting to be addressed by her any minute.

At a quit moment, Remus bowed over to Sirius. "Hey mate, I have to talk to you about something."

Sirius jumped: "What, sorry, Remus I wasn't paying attention."

"Obviously." Remus hissed.

"What is it?" Sirius asked, irritated by Remus' tone.

"Sirius, is it possible, that yu are picking up an old habit once more?"

"As you might have noticed Remus, I do not recall my old habits, sorry." Sirius didn't know what made him so aggressive, but he somehow felt as though Remus knew him inside out.

"Well, Sirius, you semmed to have developed a certain interest in Hermione, if I am not very much mistaken."

"I – that is rubbish, Remus I just think she and Harry arent getting along so well lately and I wondered why." Sirius was astonoshed how easily this had come out. He seemed to have really needed a good lie.

But Remus pressed on to the subject. "Yeah, probably, I senses some tension myself between them, but I mean something else Sirius. Do you feel attracted by her?"

"What?" Sirius was astounded about Remus being so direct.

"I ask you this because this is what you used to do. You were quite popular, I told you that already, but this didn't make you choosing at random. You had in fact a very fine taste. Always went for the special ones. Especially daring, especially smart, especially funny and always especially pretty of course."

"What do you mean? Listen, this is silly. She is sixteen!" Sirius desperately wanted this conversation to end.

"I mean that Hermione fits your scheme superbly. If she isn't special, that who is?" At this point, Sirius felt annoyed, after all it wasn't Remus' business if hermione was special or not. "And I heard you say more than once in the past that if you were sixteen now, she wouldn't be single much longer. And that was last year, before Hermione changed into that stunning young woman she is now."

Sirius' voice had gone into a low hiss "I can only say that you are completely missing the point, Remus. I have nothing like that in mind whatsoever. And she is drop-dead gorgeous, there is no denying that, but I am astounded how much thought you seem to have given that fact." With this Sirius rose from the table and left a stunned Remus sitting back in his chair, more worried than ever before.

On his way to the staircase, Sirius bumped into Hermione.

"Sorry, I –"

"What's the matter, Sirius? You look a bit deranged. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I just needed a bit of fresh air."

Hermione grinned and pointed to a big window that sha had left half ajar. "So did I. Want to join in?"

Sirius gratefully took her offer and stood next to her as she sat on the windowsill.

"I wanted to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was… completely irrational and out of bounds. It shall never happen again." If there was one thing Sirius adored above all other about his relationship with Hermione, it was that he could speak his mind to her, or at least most of it.

"No need to apologise. It was my fault too. We shouldn't be so – um – loud again." Hermione looked at his moonlit profile. Sirius seemed to be hesitatng for a moment, like he menat to say something else but then he nodded. "Alright then, no more barking." His smile was still a bit awkward, but a lot more cheerful than before. "Will you come to me again tonight?"

For a fleeting instant, Hermione's conscience told her to yell 'NO' and 'DON'T YOU SEE WHERE WE ARE GETTING OURSELVES INTO?' at him, but she couldn't. She wanted to proceed with their meetings and she knew that for Sirius' sake she could not abandon them now, whatever her conscience told her.

Hermione nodded, glancing sideways at Sirius. "I will be there."

"I will be waiting for you."

As she turned to leave, Sirius said "Hermione!"

"Yeah?"

He held his breath, then: "Nothing, just, thank you."

"That's a lot." She smiled and turned towards the kitchen.


	10. This is how I see you

Chapter ten – This is how I see you

Hermione found herself in a very awkward situation after the events of the previous days. She felt extremely uncomfortable after what had happended between Sirius and herself after his successful transformation in his old Animagus form, but on the other hand she wanted to continue their meetings, because she simply could not let him down now after they were getting so close to the crucial points of his story. But to be able to go on seeing Sirius and talking to him in this very intimate way, they needed to feel comfortable around each other.

So, it was like a silent agreement, they never spoke of what they had nearly done and Hermione decided that their weak moment had only been due to the amount of time they were spending toghether. She told herelf that no pair of persons (she carefully avoided the term "couple"), who had gone so close as they had, would have been able to act rationally all the time. It had simply been a misunderstanding and she could not possibly have longed for Sirius to kiss her, it was just the situation that got the better of her, it would have happened with any guy.

But a small voice in the back of her head kept saying that she was in fact very close to both Harry and Ron and she had never wished for any one of them to kiss her, no matter what situation they had been in. At this moment, Hermione usually busied herself with something in order to make the voice shut up.

Sirius on the other hand was not as successful as Hermione in explaining his feelings to himself. In fact, it had been Remus who had ruined this for him. Remus, who had accused him of fancying the girl and who seemed to have a scaringly good idea of how his old friend's mind was working whenever women were concerned. Sirius found Remus' word echoing in his head more than once and every time he found it harder to deny that he actually felt something for Hermione that was way beyond gratitude. He caught himself watching her from time to time, he liked to be around her during the day and longed for her coming to him at night. She was making him feel better than he had done in ages and he found himself thinking more and more that he was not willing to give this up.

What if he was fancying her? After all, this was no wonder, she was intelligent and pretty and unusually kind. Sirius thought almost defiantly that it was not his fault if Remus disapproved of him liking Hermione, it was not his business after all, he did not need to justify his feelings to Remus Lupin.

"But someday, you will have to justify them to Hermione and what will she think if a man who could be her father tells her that he is in love with her?" A voice that was unmistakably ressembling Remus' was whispering in his mind. "Shut up!" Sirius said gruffily. But yes, what would she think if he told her? And how would she feel if he asked her to do something that would upset Harry even more than what they were doing already? Sirius sighed.

No, there was no way of telling her, but, then there was another voice in his head, sounding much more like his own: "It would not hurt to loosen up a little, would it? Nobody could request that from now on we act like we were nothing but aquaintances. Where is the point in being so tense? There is nothing wrong with her being my friend. And a very charming too." Sirius grinned. Remus had a point, he had a soft spot when it came to girls, only to special girls, of course.

Remus yawned widely and stumbled down the staircase in the morning. He was very tired after another long night spent over countless Ministry documents. He longed for coffee and a good share of Molly Weasley's excellent breakfast. Then he suddenly remembered that Molly was not there this morning due to some errands she had to make, given that the beginning of the Hogarts term was drawing nearer.

Suddenly, he heared loud voices from the kitchen. Laughter and bickering mixed into a joyful cacophony.

"There is nothing wrong with Muggle cooking, Sirius! The food is just as good as the one you make magically."

"Maybe, but where is the point in making an effort chopping and stirring, while you can just lean back and have the kitchen do everything on it's own?"

"Well, Mister, I thought it would be fun to make breakfast the old-fashioned way, like I know it from home. And I actually expected you to be polite enough to help for once!"

When Remus enterd the kitchen, a grinning Sirius, hanging lazily in his chair, came into view. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, his dark hair was falling into his eyes as he watched Hermione, who stood, arms folded, in front of him. Sirius looked cheerful, alive and a lot like the playful ladies-man Remus had used to know at school. Sirius didn't seem to pay much attention to what she wanted him to do, but even more to the girl herself, as she was standing there and Remus saw at once why. Hermione was wearing a knee-long jeans-skirt and a loose white shirt of a thin, beautifully falling material. It left a good part of her soft shoulders and graceful collarbones uncovered and brought out her female figure perfectly. Remus suddenly became aware of how se had changed since he had last really looked at her. She was a young woman now, although he had never been that aware of her female aura and beauty. Her wild hair was tied into an untidy bun at the back of her head, leaving her long neck uncovered. Remus stared at Hermione for a few seconds, before he became aware of what he was doing. He looked away very quickly. By now, Hermione was scowling at Sirius, although Remus thought he saw a tiny little gliter in her eyes that didn't seem to fit her scowl at all. Appearantly, Hermione had decided to make breakfast the "Muggle way" and with her being Hermione there was no point in arguing, as she would stick to her decision, even if that menat that breakfast would be served at dinner time. Remus saw slices of tomatos, scrambled eggs in a large pan, toast, orange juice and, on the table in front of Sirius, bacon waiting to be chopped. Sirius however didn't seem to be willing to help Hermione and was teasing her with his jokes.

"Hermione, come on, I sure do know that you are perfectly capable to make breakfast, but why don't we give up this breakfast-the-Muggle-way-project and carry on like we're used to?"

At this point, Hermione drew out her wand in one fluent, elegant movement and pointed it at Sirius.

"What, I thought we weren't supposed to use magic on the breakfast?" he exclaimed.

"I'm not planning to jinx the breakfast, lazy-bone. If you don't want to help me, I'll make you." Her eyes flashed dangerously as she looked at Sirius. Her voice was cool and steady, but there was a certain playful (flirtive? Remus thought) note in it. Sirius sat still for a moment, then he rose from his chair and approached her slowly: "You wouldn't dare to." His eyes were narrowed, but a smile was playing around his lips.

Hermione didn't move until he was so close that her wandtip nearly touched his chest. "Try me." She whispered, not taking her eyes from his.

Remus coughed, making the pair of them look at him. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and Sirius said: "Ah, finally, someone in his right mind! Please Remus, help me. This young lady here has the weird idea of wanting to pretend we were Muggles. And now she is threatening me, look at her, she's dangerous. Help me bring her to her senses, will you?"

Remus gave Sirius a long look, then he said to Hermione: "Breakfast the Muggle way? A charming idea, Hermione, tell me what I can do." She grinned at him and replied: "This bacon here is waiting to be chopped for half an hour. If you could be so kind?" and to Sirius: "You can sit down over there, I have a competent helper now, thank you."

Sirius fell into his chair, mockingly shaking his head and muttering something about "Madness" and "Blood-Traitors". His gaze however, never left Hermione, who had just given him a small wink as Remus had managed to knock the orange juice over the bacon.

That evening, the house was buzzing of excitement. Mr. Weasley had been given six tickets to the most famous wizard theatre in London by the Ministry. He was of course taking his wife, but had also decided that the children, as he expressed it, needed some cultural experience. So the four spare tickets had been given to Ron and Ginny and to Harry and Hermione who were both very keen on visiting the famous theatre. But visiting such a fancy event meant having to dress fancyly. Tonks and Kingsley were also coming to the theatre and so Ginny, Tonks and Hermione had spent a good deal of the afternoon in Ginny's and Hermione's room, dresing up and getting ready. Hermione had discoveredin shock that her old dress robes from her fourth year didn't fit her any more, as she had become a lot more curvy since then. So the girls had met one afternoon in Diagon Alley to shop for new dress robes. Tonks had lead them into much hipper places than Madame Malkin's and so Hermione had new dress robes now, although she was not at all sure about them. Sure, Ginny and Tonks had reasured her that she was looking gorgeous, even though it was not her usual look. Hermione had never even thought that she was having a special look, but the comment had made her even more insecure. She was standing alone in front of the mirror in her room, Tonks and Ginny being in the bathroom upstairs to decide about Tonk's haircolour and make-up. Hermione eyed herself and sighed. She needed someone who would tell her the truth about this dress. And not a girl, but a guy who was able to stimate whether this was to much. Someone with a fashion sense and someone who would not lie to her out of politeness. "Sirius." She said. She drew a bathrobe around her and marched towards his room.

Sirius was reading on his bed when he heared a knock on the door. "Come in!" Nothing. "Come in, I said!" He shouted. The door opened the tiniest krack and heared Hermione's vioce say: "Sirius, I need your advice about something. Listen, just come over to my room in one minute and tell me what you think."

"Wha-? Hermione?" But he already heared her door close.

Exactly one minute later, Sirius knocked on Hermione's door.

"Come in." The room was empty, except the pandemonium of different clothes, make-up, brushes, shawls, bags and shoes that covered a good deal of the beds and the floor. "Major dress-up disaster." Sirius grinned to himself. He didn't have a clue what this was about, until it dawned to him: The theatre, it was tonight, of course!

"Hermione?" He asked into the empty room.

"I'm here." It came out of the bathroom door. "But don't come in, I'll come out." She said, as she heared him approach the door. "Just, just sit down and tell me what you think."

"Think about what?" Sirius asked, heaving away a pile of dangerously flashy clothes ("Tonks!" he grinned. He loved the experimental style of his cousin, although with girls whose hair wasn't bubble-gum pink, he preferred something more classy).

"This sounds weird now, but I need you to tell me what you think about my dress for tonight."

"What? But, why do you ask me and not Tonks or Ginny? They know better about that stuff, Hermione."

"Because they would never, ever say that the dress look terrible or something, they would make up something about 'Brings out your ankles' just to be polite. No, Sirius, I need someone with taste about, about – er – dresses." Hermione sounded very insecure.

Sirius drew up his eyebrows: "I don't know much about the latest fashion, but I sure know what I like on a woman, if that's what you mean."

"Er – yes, that's exactly what I need!" Hermione scowled at herself in the bathroom mirror. Why was she so nervous about this? She eyed her reflection, that looked so unknown and muttered "Pathetic!" Why did she have to be so daring in her choice of dress? Why couldn't she just stick to the more conservative dresses? 'Because you thought about how HE looks at you when you chose this.' teased a little voice in her head. She took a deep breath and said: "Sirius? I have only one wish: Please be honest to me! I know you would never lie to me out of politeness."

Sirius smiled about how serious she was taking this: "Hermione, come on out, you'll be leaving in half an hour. Of course I would not lie to you, but I'm sure there'll be not need t… Oh my…" He choked. The bathroom door had just opened and Hermione had taken a few steps into the room. Sirius helt his breath – she looked stunning. The dress was made of black satin, it was a bit over kneelong. With it, she was wearing classy, black leather pumps, rather high and pointed, but elegant and sexy, her legs were delicately tanned. A bit of fine black lace showed at the seam and at the rather deep cleavage of the dress. The dress lay tightly around her waist and brought out her curves beautifully. From her hips down, it became wider and fell smoothly over her knees. Hermione had tied up her hair into an elegant chignon, a single curl fell over her forehead. She was wearing decent make-up, elegant smokey-eyes and a shimmer of gold on her lips. Her high cheekbones shone slighly with a touch of gold-brown rouge. Now, Hermione was looking at Sirius anxiously. "What do you think?"

His voice was suddenly hoarse "Beautiful." He could not take his eyes of her, his breath was going slightly faster "Hermione, you have the elegance of a true lady, I – I don't know what to say, you lost me for words."

Hermione couldn't help but stare at him. She had never been more aware of his eyes, as they seemed to follow every trace of her body, just to sink into hers again. "Don't you think, it's a bit much? I mean, this is so not me, I hardly recognise myself when I look into the mirror."

"Hermione, you are beautiful." Sirius got up and went over to her. "I want to show you something." He gently steered her to the large mirror on the girls' closet.

There they were, Sirius standing behing Hermione holding her shoulders and her gaze in the mirror.

"Look at you, this is you. This is how I see you every day. The dress and the shoes and the make-up that's just now, but the woman you see there, she is who I see, everytime I look at you."

"Sirius…" Now it was Hermione's turn to be lost for words. His words, his look, his true admiration all washed over her like an almighty wave. She wanted this moment to last forever. She didn't need any theatre if she could just be with Sirius. For a moment she just watched what she saw. Him and her, toghether, looking into each other's eyes, his hands so strong and gentle on her shoulders. "So, you wouldn't change anything?" She asked.

Sirius smiled: "Not a thing." But then suddenly he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. "Well yes, there is one thing. Do you trust me?"

Hermione nodded. Sirius lifted his hands from her shoulders and pulled out the hairpins holding her chignon. At once, full wild curls fell over her shoulders, where they lay dark brown and shining, adding a new sexy and untamed aspect to the picture.

Sirius smiled at the effect and said: "Perfect. You will stun them all, and you don't even need your wand for that."

Hermione grinned at him, relieved and happy.

His voice was hoarse again, deep and seductive. "No, really, Hermione, I wish I could accompany you tonight, I envy Harry. Or Ron? Who are you going with?"

"Harry. He couldn't pluck up the courage to ask Ginny, so we chose the less complicate solution." Suddenly she found it hard to look him into the eyes, fearing that Sirius would see how much she would have liked him to take her out. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines, but didn't want to hide it at all.

"Let me at least lead you downstairs. You have to leave in ten minutes." He broke his gaze and turned to her, his arm ready for her to take it.

Hermione smiled and placed her hand onto it. Toghether, they left the room, making a stunning entrance downstairs, where everybody was waiting (except for Tonks who had decided on red at last minute and needed to adjust her make-up).

It was a wonderful night, everybody was happy and outgoing, but Hermione caught herself not really following the play or the comments of the others in the break, because she was still feeling those hands on her shoulders.

It took her long before she could sleep that night and her dreams were haunted by grey eyes and pictures of Sirius and her in the mirror, Sirius' hands occasionally leaving her shoulders and travelling towards the zipper of her dress.

At breakfast next morning, Hermione watched Sirius chat with Harry about the theatre and their evening, she watched his face and his hands as he laughed and gestured. And the little voice started to tease again 'You wouldn't have turned him down last night if he had asked you to go out with him or to do other things with him, things you dreamed about last night, eh?' And Hermione closed her eyes, whispering: "No. No, I wouldn't have turned you down, I would have gone with you Sirius and I would today."


	11. A walk in the sun

Hi everybody!

Or shoud I say "Moika!" because this is what the Finns say when they mean "Hi". The Finns and Finnland, where I've been living since January, are the main reason why I haven't been updating. I am really sorry for this! I will be back in Germany in June, so there will be regular updates again and in the meantime, I will see what I can do. I can say as much as this. Apart from that chapter below, I have another one ready, but it still needs some fine-tuning.

Enjoy! Marie

Chapter eleven – A walk in the sun

Sirius felt good to see Harry so cheerful. The visit to the theatre had been a big success, everyone was still in conversation about the previous night. Sirius watched his godson as he told his version of the night, a version that talked about everything except Ginny and the regret of having missed yet another chance to ask her out. When Harry got up to get some more tea, Sirius heared a voice whisper in his ear: "How on earth did you do that?" He looked around. Tonks had scooged over to sit next to him and was looking at him now, eyebrows raised.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Hermione, of course, or do you think no one has noticed after the entrance you two made yesterday?" Sirius felt his insides freeze. What did she know about Hermione and him, could she possibly have guessed what Hermione was doing, let alone what had been going on between them lately?

"I don't know what you mean, dear cousin." He tried to sound casual, but failed.

"Well, I kind of saw your fashion sense peek through that stunning look of hers. Did you give her some advice?" She had not lowered those eyebrows yet.

"Er, I think so, she sort of, er you know." He stuttered

"No." Those eyebrows.

"She, er, …" get a grip an yourself, Sirius thought furiously. "She asked me what I thought about the dress and I told her I thought it was, well, pretty."

"Pretty. Where do you have your eyes, Sirius? This does not fit your reputation at all! She looked completely stunning, radiant and so sexy. And what's with that hair, she is so conventional usually. I guess it was not her idea to wear it like that."

Sirius still siltently agreed to the "sexy" part of Tonks' little speech when he sighed: "I confess, yeah the hair, that was me. I just think it fits her character so much better. She's so strong and wild at heart, she would never give in to anything she thinks is wrong." Good, he so needed to talk about Hermine to someone. But there were Tonks eyebrows, now endangered to disappear into her pink hair.

"I see…" She said.

"What, you see what?" Sirius fired up.

"Someone finally recognised our Hermione for who she trully is. And I don't mean her hair, Sirius, I mean the part about her character, you are right." She smiled as though she knew something he didn't, which made him very nervous.

"I just meant, that she is, well, special. Hermione has so much inside her apart from that supreme mind and her kindness. I just get to know her better now that everyone is living so close together." Sirius had to restrain himself not to break into a passionate speech about Hermione's personality.

"Special, I see. Remus told me."

"Told you wha-" he broke off. "So Remus is behind this little chit-chat, ha? I should have thought so! So he sent you to tell me off about Hermione? I told him I didn't have any intentions or whatsoever!" Sirius felt anger boil inside him. Anger about Remus always thinking he knew best about what to do or feel. And anger about Remus having a very good idea that there actually were intentions involved whenever Sirius' conscience was not looking.

"No, quite the contrary, dear cousin." Tonks shook her head. "I think there is nothing wrong with you appreciating Hemione."

"Really?" Sirius was stunned. Then the obvious question burst into his mind. "Why?"

"Because I think Remus is overreacting about people liking other people they are 'not supposed to like'. He is so stubborn about these conventions, you would not believe it."

Something dawned on Sirius. "And now you have come to encourage me to do something really stupid and inconvenient, so that Remus will finally come to his senses and admit he wants to marry you and have loads of kids with you?"

"No! Yes, well, I mean, what would be wrong with you and Hermione? Those few years, who cares?" Sirius thought she looked really desperate.

"Tonks, there is no me and Hermione." He admitted, more gravely than he had intended. "And I think twenty years are a lot. We just get along very well, that's all." Sirius did not look at his cousin, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Sorry, I did not mean to annoy you even more than Remus already did." She breathed out very loudly and shook her head. "I get carried away with those things sometimes…"

Sirius smiled: "I will talk to Remus sometime and tell him to get a move on, shall I?"

"Who is to get a move on with what?" Harry had returned.

"Oh, nothing Harry, Tonks and I just discussed… Oh, never mind. I think I will get a move on myself and take a walk outside."

Sirius had hesitantly adopted the habit of taking strolls around the neighbourhood of Grimmauld Place, something which had taken him inexplicably long. The others had encouraged him greatly and said something about him really needing fresh air after all this time. He did not really understand what they meant by this, but it didn't matter anyway as his walks were his favourite time of the day, except of course the times Hermione visited him at night.

The warm wind blew through his hair, the summer was slowly dying away, they were already approachng the end of August. Sirius thought that it was only two weks until the Hogwarts year would start again. Harry, Ron and Hermione would be leaving Grimmauld Place and would not come back until Christmas. He felt a sudden cold sweep his insides at the thought of not having Hermione near him all the time.

The conversation with Tonks had left him in thought. Was she right, was everyone too obsessed with age and conventions when it came to relationships? On the other hand, he imagined himself as the father of a sixteen year old daughter, would he want a man like himself to become her – to become her what, exactly? Sirius knew very well what he really wanted to be, but was too afraid to admit it to himself. To be playful around her, alright, but what about those intent moments when she told him about his life? What about his urge not to let her go when he said goodbye before the theatre? Sirius knew that his was more than just a flirt, more than just desire.

As the wind swept his hair, he stared into the sun and knew that he was lost, his heart pounding, he turned to go back to Grimmauld Place. There was only one thing Sirius knew for certain: He would not allow Hermione to be hurt in any way, even if this meant that he would never be able to be with her as he wanted to.

Hermione sat on the windowsill of her bedroom window and watched Sirius slowly walk back to the house. The images of the previous night kept returning to her mind and seeing the tall, dark haired man, the way he moved and the way the wind blew his shirt to his body did not help at all. Little did Sirius know that the young woman who was watching him was thinking along the same lines as him at the moment. She too dreaded the end of the holidays and wondered how she could be without Sirius close to her. She too fought in vain against images and wishes in her mind and she too promised to herself that nothing should happen to bother him.


	12. Giving in

Chapter twelve – Giving in 

Hermione had dreaded this moment since she had first agreed to help Sirius. She needed to tell him about the circumstances of Lily and James Potters' death and about the consequences the events had had for Sirius. When she sat on his bed again, facing him and his trusting eyes, she thought about backing out and telling him something, anything that would hurt him less.

Now she could understand Harry's motivation to spare his godfather the knowledge of his past better than ever. But she had started to walk him down that road and she knew that, in the end it would lead to recovery for him.

"So I understand that there was a spy right inside the Order?" Sirius had listened to Hermione's words with rapt attention.

"Yes. And this person betrayed Harry's parents' whereabouts to Voldemort. In fact, it turned out that some people in Harry's parents' inner circle already suspected that somebody was passing inforamtion to Voldemort."

"But then – why were they running around, blabbing the location of their hiding place to everybody."

Hermione sighed. There was no way of postponing this any further. "They didn't. Only very few people knew where they were about to hide. In fact, as far as I know, only Dumbledore, James and Lily themselves and their secret keeper. They chose one person to whom they confided their secret, so that it would be save inside this person. Voldemort could have kept searching forever, unless the secret keeper told him, he would never have been able to find Harry's parents."

"So, they chose the wrong person? They were betrayed by their own secret keeper? Who was it? Are they still alive?" Sirius gaze never left Hermione's eyes.

"Well, they chose the right person at first, but then, they switched at the very last moment. They switched to the spy." Hermione still shuddered at the thought of the circumstances she herself had heard this story for the first time. "The man who betrayed Lily and James was Peter Pettigrew. One of James' three best friends at school. The other two, were, as you know, Remus and you."

Sirius stared at her: "No. I don't believe this. But how come they didn't know he was the spy? Why did they decide to switch to him?"

"Everyone was suspecting everyone to be the spy at this time, Sirius. And Peter was supposed to be a brilliant bluff, because he seemed not likely to be a very effective defender of a that important secret in the first place. At first, they had chosen – you."

Hermione watched Sirius and hoped against hope that he would be acting senibly, but –

His eyes suddenly became empty, he shook his head without noticing of doing so. Hermione wanted to explain, but he raised his hand to silence her: "So it was my fault. I was not brave enough to stand up for them and that's because Harry has no parents –" his voice died away.

Hermione felt horrible seeing him so hopeless and for a fleeting moment she wished that she had not started the whole conversation, but then she shook her head determinedly: "No, Sirius, it was definitely not your fault. Listen, you would have done anything for them, you would have died to save them, youwould have willingly given your life for their safety. Nobody knew about Pettigrew. In fact I think, everyone underestimated him, because nobody thought that he could have so much ruthlessness and foolishness inside him. It was not your fault at all!" Desperately she waved her hands, wishing for some proof to appear out of thin air, something that would help him understand. But everything Hermione found was the lingering threat of what was still to be told.

Sirius had buried his face inside his hands. He felt his mind racing. There were so many questions and doubts crammed into his head. Somehow he had even started to imagine pictures of the scenes Hermione had just told him about. The face of a younger, very concerned Albus Dumbledore swam before his eyes, Lily, holding her young son, James, telling him to go and hide himself. He shook his head to get rid of thouse flashes.

And there were more questions: Why did Hermione tell him that he was not responsible for his friends' death, when it seemed so obvious? Why was she still on his side, trying to convince him that he was a good person, when he had been a fool and a coward? He was sinking deeper and deeper into those questions, when her voice dragged him into reality again.

"Sirius? Are you alright? Is there anything I can do?" When he looked at her, he thought for a moment that he had found an anwer to his questions. There, in her eyes was an expression, that had nothing to do with concern. She was looking right into his soul, obviously trying hard to work out how she could help him, and this calmed him. He knew that she would be there, that he could tell her whatever thought would wander his mind.

Sirius swallowed. "Yes, thank you, I – I just don't know how to deal with this, I mean, even if it was not my fault, they where my friends, and they are dead now. And their killer is still hunting Harry."

"But now you are here to protect him." Hermione said in a quiet voice. "And you have no idea how much this would have meant to Lily and James."

Sirius felt it again, the urge to reach out for her, to be close to her, because he felt unable to express his feelings with words. "Hermione, what happended then?" His eyes were turned onto the bed, avoiding hers, because he could not trust his self control.

"I – Sirius, I don't … Don't you think, that this was enough for tonight?" Hermione tried hard to keep her voice steady. She wanted nothing more than to stay here with Sirius, talking to him. She wanted to make sure that he was OK with his new gained knowledge. But her instinct told her to go and she convinced herself to believe that it was only fear of telling him about the next steps of his own story and that the tension she felt rising between them again was only due to their tragic subject.

"No." he answered flatly. "Please don't go, Hermione, I could not stand you leaving tonight – " he suddenly realised how this sounded – just like he had meant it, in every possible way. Sirius hurriedly added: "I mean, I need to know what happened to me next. Please tell me, there are so many questions I need to have answered."

Hermione decided to argue, but from the moment her heart had started beating like mad at the tone in Sirius' voice when he had asked her to stay, she knew that she was fighting a loosing battle. She could not possibly leave him like this. And after all, she thought he needed to understand his story as a whole, so there was no point in tearing it apart at this crucial point.

"I will stay with you." Hearing herself say these word, Hermione swore to herself, that she would not give in to anything she might have felt or still feel for the man sitting in front of her. She needed to be strong and help him, further disarray and drama were the last things Sirius needed right now.

And she told him. She told him about how he had set out for Peter right after he had discovered Peter had betrayed his friends. About how he had found the spy and cornered him, determined to kill him. And about how Peter had gotten the better of him, about how he had managed to escape with no greater sacrifice than his index, while Sirius himself was left with all the apparent guilt on his shoulders, not only for Harry's parents' deaths, but also for a mass-killing of several Muggles and his good friend Peter Pettigrew.

"Peter layed all the blame on you. And everyone was bound to believe it, even the Order, they believed you had killed Peter, because he had cornered you."

Sirius felt numb, his head suddenly empty. He didn't understand what she was telling him, did this mean that he had been on the run for the last fifteen years? And why was he with everybody else now? And he asked Hermione: "What did I do then?"

There it was. The question Hermione had known he would be asking. She felt weak again, even thought about to run for it, to run from him in order to protect him – and herself from havin g to tel him the truth. She closed her eyes, pondering her words. Then she looked straight at Sirius.

"They caught you. The Ministry did catch you right on the spot. You received a life sentence in Azkaban. You were imprisoned for twelve years. Only three years ago, you managed to break out, in order to save Harry's life from Peter Pettigrew."

Sirius felt his ears ringing, he had lost track of Hermione's words after 'twelve years'. He heard her voice, but nothig she said made sense. He had been imprisoned. He had not been able to help Harry through his parentless childhood. He had not been able to help the Order catch the remainings of Lord Voldemort's following. His life had been waisted away in a cell. Sirius felt his knees hit the floor as he broke down, darkness surrounded him –

Hermione watched him helplessly. She sat there on the bed, frozen, unable to speak, unable to move. She felt her heart break into pieces at seeing him like this. Then she felt a single tear rolling down her cheek and the warmth woke her. Hermione was not thinking anymore, she only wanted to be there for Sirius. She kneeled onto the floor next to Sirius' sunken, shaking form. She grabbed his broad shoulders, helped him up with some difficulty and pulled him into her arms. She embraced him with all the strength she could master and with all the tenderness she could give. Hermione felt Sirius pant, he was hot, like in a fever, his long black hair was damp from tears and sweat.  
She closed her eyes as she felt him so near, stroking his hair, burying her face into his shoulder. She heard him mutter about feeling lost and alone, heard the names of James and Lily, she heard Harry's name, Remus', her own. He was still shaking, Hermione tried to push him away far enough, so she could make him look into her eyes, but he wouldn't let go, he was clinging to her body like a drowning man.   
She felt the wamth of his neck against her cheek, his breath on her skin, suddenly his hands were in her hair, stroking it, and she tried not to get lost in his touch, as he held her even tighter. His hands moved over her back, her hair, she felt his tears on her neck, warm, and then his lips, hot and coarse on her sensitive skin. She drew in her breath at the sensation of him touching her like this, instinctively wanting to push him away. But Sirius would not let her, he grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and kissed her passionately on the lips.  
Hermione couldn't resist Sirius any longer, she gave in to him completely, nothing mattered anymore but his deep kisses, his hot hands on her skin, the feeling of finally having him in her arms, being close to him. Sirius woke a passion inside her she could and would not control. Hermione took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply, as he lifted her a little, lowering her completely onto the floor, his lips never leaving hers.  
He seized her around her waist, pulled her body towards his, hungry for her warmth, he felt that she was the only thing that would keep him from falling into the darkness of his own fate. Sirius could not get enough of her tender but passionate kisses, he covered every inch of her skin he could reach with his lips and hands. He felt her hands on his back, under his shirt and moaned her name "Oh, Hermione, Hermione – "

It was as though his own voice had woken him up. It was Hermione he was holding, it was the skin on her thighs he was stroking, Hermione's lips he was kissing, her body that she gave so willingly to him. Hermione, his godson's sixteen year old friend.  
Sirius opened his eyes in shock, and he let go of her, backed away against the bed and stared at her, still panting.

Hermione was shocked by him leaving her so suddenly. "What's the matter? Are you OK?"

Sirius muttered: "What am I doing? What am I doing to you?"

Hermione was completely lost: "What do you mean, to me? You were not – " but he cut across her. "This is not right, you don't really want this, you are doing this because you want to help me, I have gone to far, I couldn't control myself."

Something terrible dawned on Hermione. He thought she was doing this out of pity. "Sirius, _no_ – I would never do anything like this if I didn't really want it, believe me, I kissed you because I wanted it…" Hermione cursed herself for being so weak, for troubling him with giving in to her impossible desires. She tried to reach out for him, but Sirius turned away and stared into the dying fire.

His voice shook: "You can't possibly imagine what this would mean to me, Hermione. I dreamed about this, I wished for this ever since I first layed eye on you the day I came back. But this is just not right, I am so much older than you, I am so not like you… And you are helping me, you've seen in what state I am. You feel obliged to help me. And I am taking advantage of this situation, this is so wrong." Hermione tried to interrupt him, but he wouldn't let her.

Finally, he turned to her and looked into her eyes. The sadness in his face nearly made her cry, as he said in a very hoarse voice: "You have no idea how much I want you. But I can't let you do this like that, it would only make you sad and you would regret it – "  
"SIRIUS, NO! Listen, I made such a terrible mistake, I promised myself I would not let anything bother you, that I would be strong for you, but I failed, I failed." Hermione felt tears stream down her cheeks. "I tried to push all this away, all those – but I couldn't, I should never have let this happen, because look at you, now you are worse than ever. This is not right and it is all my fault, I should have known that was impossible from the start, and I did but I didn't listen to my reason, it was all gone!"

She had never felt this empty before in her life. Slowly, Hermione rose from the floor and walked to the door. Sirius felt an urge to run after her, but it was too late. The draft that came into the room through the closing door extinguished the last low flames in the fireplace and Sirius breathed his "Hermione" into the dark room.


	13. Through closed doors

Chapter 13 – Through closed doors 

Sirius woke with a start. He found himself lying on his bed, fully dressed, the remainders of a bottle of what unmistakeably smelled like firewhisky shattering the floor. The sun was shining brightly outside, the house seemed quiet. With a slow moan, he sat up. Immediately, a terrible headache stroke him. An then images flowed into his mind. At first he did not realise what they meant. He saw Hermione, her arms wrapped around him, he saw her hair covering the floor as she lay under him, he saw her eyes, so close, smelled her skin, tasted her lips, heared her whisper. For a moment, Sirius just let his mind linger on those images, unable to understand what they meant. Then he screwed up his eyes, his hand flew to his face as he moaned: "No…" Everything came back. He had kissed Hermione, he had lost control and given in to his desire for her, he had tried to sleep with her, had clung to her when she told him… And then he remembered the other part of the night. The terrible truth about his past, his imprisonment, the murder of his best friends, Harry's parents. Sirius was unable to move, he just sat there, minutes passing by. Then a knock on the door made him jump.

"Sirius? Are you in there? There is a bit of lunch left, you might want to come down!" Remus shouted through the door.

Sirius could not speak.

"Hello! What's up, are you alright?"

"I-" his voice sounded hoarse. "Leave me alone!"

"Sirius, come on, its nearly noon!" Remus continued to knock.

"Didn't you hear me, leave me alone!" He could not stand to see anyone at the moment.

"What is going on with you, are you – "

"Shut up, Remus and go down to your lunch or whatever, just SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!" Sirius could not control his voice, he wanted to be alone, he wanted to shut himself off from the world, he did not care about anyone anymore.

"Fine, do what you want then, I am leaving for the ministry." Remus sounded taken aback by Sirius' outbreak. Sirius heared his footsteps draw away.

He closed his eyes and fell back onto the bed. He felt numb, dead and wasted. Then he jumped up so suddenly that his head gave a horrible pain. He could not stand it. Sirius crossed the room in three steps, almost breaking into a run and wiped everything on the big table that stood by the window, to the ground. Glass smashed, ink spread on the floorboards, when Sirius, in his rage, threw the massive chair into the cold fireplace. He felt his hands bleed where they had made contact with the breaking glass but did not care. He could not stand the icy feeling of numbness that hab grabbed his heart, he needed to feel. At the same time, this desire to feel made his rage even greater as he knew that it had been this what had made him do those things to Hermione. He had exploited her, betrayed her trust, just to escape the cold that had sweapt over him after he had realised what had happened to him. He let out a roar of rage and wiped all the books from their shelve. Pages tore and wood splinterd as he tore the shelve of the wall. As the dust settled over the destruction he had caused, Sirius shook under violent tears, breaking down onto the floor.

Hermione's eyes shot up at the ceiling when she heared the noise from upstairs. Remus had just left for the ministry, leaving Harry and her alone in Grimauld Place. The Weasleys had gone to get Charlie from the station, who was in town for the weekend and Tonks had accompanied Remus. Hermione knew immediately what the sound must mean and she ran out of the kitchen, hoping that Harry, who was reading in the sun behind the house, had not heard anything.

On the second landing, facing the corridor that led to Sirius' room, she paused. Her knees were shaking as the feeling of guilt washed over her. It was her fault. She had been so foolish, so arrogant to believe she knew what was best for Sirius. She had caused this agony by telling him about his dreadful past. Now his memories had come to haunt him once again. To haunt them both.

And not enough, she had not even been able to restrain herself and leave him alone in this state of grief. She had believed he could have feelings for her. She had added her foolish schoolgirl behaviour to his worries. She turned to walk away, she was too ashamed to face Sirius and feared to bother him even more. But then she heared him roar as the bookshelf smashed. She could not leave him. Running to his door, she shouted: "Sirius!"

He did not answer.

Fear swept over Hermione. She knew what he was capable of. She had heard of his strenght, felt it herself, she had seen his uncontrollable rage, every time he had faced Snape. "Sirius! Open, it's me!"

There was no sound. Hermione banged on the door.

Still, no reaction. Hermione felt the panic rise inside her. What if Sirius had hurt himself? "Please open, Sirius! Are you alright? Open, please!" Then she heard it. The same heavy panting as last night. He seemed to be close to the door.

"Sirius? It's Hermione, are you alright, let me in!"

Sirius leaned his forehead to the cool, polished wood of the heavy door. He still panted from rage and desperation. But there was her voice, Hermione's voice, coming through the door. It soothed him. He continued to lean to the door, to hear her.

"Please open, Sirius! Are you alright? I am scared for you!" Nothing came but Hermione felt Sirius' presence close to her, right behind the door. She sank to the floor, leaning her head to the cool wood. "I – I wanted to tell you that I am sorry for what happened last night. Not because for what what happened between us, but for the pain I caused you by telling you all this and by being so stupid and uncontrolled. Sirius, I know you can hear me, I want you to know this. Please believe me, I would never have kissed you if I had not wanted it. Believe me…" A single tear rolled down Hermione's cheek. "Believe me." She whispered, her mouth close to the door.

Sirius' breathing had slowed down, his mind was clearer, he felt calmer. He still could not speak to Hermione, although her words meant more to him than anything in the world. They made the terrible weight of his newly gained memories bearable. At her last "Believe me." he nodded slowly and layed his hand to the door.

Hermione did not know how long she had sat there. Somehow she knew that Sirius was alright. After a while, she said: "I am downstairs with Harry, everyone else is out. If you need me, call me! If you want to stay in there, I will cover up for you, don't worry. I will do whatever you need me to do, Sirius, because I…"

Sirius could not hear the last two words, because she had merely breathed them against the door, but he knew them already and this carried him through the night.


	14. Revelations

Chapter 14 – Revelation 

Sirius did not know what Hermione had told the others, but no one came to call or question him about his staying in his room for the next two days. On Sunday evening, however, Hermione had come to his door and told him that she and everyone else would go out to celebrate Mr. Weasley's promotion. Sirius was glad that he would be able to leave his room and be alone in his house for a while and he knew that Hermione understood this.

He went down and hour after he had heard them leave and sat by the kitchen window for a while. His temper had calmed thanks to Hermione's influence and his mind had started to adjust to the knowledge about his past. It was still painful to think about his waisted youth, but somehow he could handle it better than he had hoped. He went outside for a bit, watching the sun set behind the surrounding houses and feeling better than he had in days. When the first stars began to shine, he went into the house once more. As soon as he had entered the kitchen, he heard the door open and close again.

"Hello? I came to bring the papers Dumbledore asked for." An unpleasant voice said. Sirius knew it sounded familiar and the moment its owner enterd the kitchen, he knew who this must be: Snape. Sirius' stomach gave an unpleasant lurch as he simply stood there, staring at his old enemy. Hermione had of course told him about his "special relationship" to Snape, but nothing could have prepared him for the wave of hatred that swept over him when he saw Snape in person.

The potions master gave Sirius a cold, calculating look. "Well, you seemed to have forgotten your manners, Black. One usually greets guests. But no, my mistake, you never even had manners."

"What are you doing here?" Sirius found it extremely difficult not to run forward and throw the smaller man from his house.

"I came on Order business, Black, work, if you can remember that." Snape sneered.

"Than leave whatever you brought here and get out!"

"Oh, I am unsure whether I can trust you with business that important, Black, you are quite oblivious sometimes, I shall say."

Sirius felt the anger boil up inside him. "Get yourself out here. You are not welcome. Everyone is out, Dumbledore won't be here 'till tomorrow."

"Everyone is out, how peculiar. You don't seem to have forgotten everything, Black, old habits die hard and it seems that not even your precious godson can keep you away from your tendency to get yourself _locked up_." Snape waited for the impact of these words, but it did not turn out the way he had expected. Sirius did not seem confused by this statement.

Instead, he growled: "Save your rubbish for someone who will listen, Snivellus." Sirius could not restrain himself of throwing the old insult at Snape, but at once he knew it had been a mistake.

Snape stared at him when he had heard his old nickname. "What did you say to me, Black? I thought…" His black eyes bored unblinkingly into Sirius' grey ones. "I see… so, someone filled you in. I wonder who might have overruled your clever godson's decision to so nicely spare you the nastier parts of your story." Snape had a hungry look on his face as he searched for answeres in Sirius' mind.

"Will you shut the fuck up! You will not do your legilimens-crap to me, you idiot!" It took Sirius two steps to reach Snape, who retreated, but Sirius was too quick for him. With one hand, he grabbed the front of Snape's robes and pinned him to a cupboard, with the other, he pointed his wand at Snape's face. He still stared into Snape's eyes, unable to follow his logic that told him to look away in order to shut his mind from Snape's gaze. "Will you now leave my house!" Sirius' voice resembled the great black dog's growl more than ever.

But it was too late. Snape's face broke into a cruel smirk as he whispered: "Ah, I should have thought so from the beginning. Ms. Granger is not blessed with the ability to respect other people's judging, she will alwyas know it better, won't she? But you surely already know that Black, because as I see, you have become quite, ah, close."

Sirius' insides contracted with shock. Snape knew. He had seen those things that were burned into Sirius' mind forever.

Snape went on: "I can imagine that you could not resist to turn on your cheap Casanova thing on her. However, it must have been quite easy to persuade her, she must crave for some male interest, plain and attention-seeking as she is."

"What is going on?" Came a voice from the door. But too late. Sirius did not care about jinxes or curses or voices any more. He punched Snape hard in the face, making Snape's head hit the cupboard door, just after his nose broke.

"DON'T YOU DARE INSULT HER!" He roared, completely beside himself.

Snape's unconscious form hit the floor as Sirius let go of his robes to get a better aim for his next punch.

"Sirius, what are you doing?" Harry was standing in the door, Remus, Tonks, Hermione and the Weasleys right behind him.

Sirius still had not realized that a bunch of people had just entered his kitchen. "You don't have any idea of her you scumbag! How can you talk of her like that? She saved me, she gave me back my memories, my self, she gave me everything she has, I would be nothing without her." He started to raise Snape from the floor to get a clear shot at him as he heard a terrified scream: "NO!" It was Hermione. She had rushed past Harry into the kitchen, facing Sirius. What she saw scared her. Snape must have said something terrible to Sirius, because he was in a rage that Hermione had never seen before. Now she understood that Remus sometimes spoke fearfully of the combination of Sirius' white hot rage and his animalistic strenght. Sirius stood over Snape, at his full, impressive height, fist raised, eyes blazing, his black hair hanging dangerously into his eyes. At the sound of Hermione's voice, he turned his head and looked at her. Then, slowly, he turned his head to Harry, who was still standing in the door, rooted to the spot, disbelieving about what Sirius had just revealed.

"You know? You know everything?" Harry's voice was dangerously low, trembling with fury. "And you" he turned to Hermione. "You told him? Against my will? I never thought you would betray me like this!"

For a split second, Hermione looked like she would burst into tears. Sirius knew she must be devastated about Harry finding out what they had done. But he was wrong.

Hermione straightened herself up, looked Harry right in the eyes and said: "Yes. It was me who told him. And Harry, I am sorry that you have found out like this, but I could not watch it any longer. Sirius was not himself, he was lost in dreadful visions he could not deal with, because he did not know where they came from. I made a decision and I will stand up for it."

Harry looked like he had been hit with something heavy. Clearly, he too, had expected Hermione to cry and plead for forgiveness for her wrongdoing.

"But why did you not tell me? I am the one responsible for Sirius! I am the one who decided from the start!" Harry retreated as he saw Hermione's eyes narrow dangerously at these words.

"You decided? The only one responsible for Sirius is Sirius himself! All you did was take that from him! You made him into some happy-looking shadow of himself. You took his life from him by lying about his past. Oh, yes Harry, don't deny it, you LIED!"

As Harry opened his mouth to respond, Sirius cut across him: "I do not blame you Harry. For nothing. I know I often said I wished I could get rid of all my memories. And you were right, this was the chance. No one could have thought this would go so wrong and it's my fault I did not tell you. Hermione only found out by accident." He stepped over the still unconcious Snape towards his godson: "Hermione did only what she thought was right and you should not blame her. I will not allow it." He added forcefully when Harry shot Hermione an angry look. But Harry's temper, though no real match for Sirius', was raising too.

"And what's that you said about Hermione to Snape? I sounded like my godfather is lusting after a sixteen year old! You are disgusting, both of – "

At this moment Remus entered the room, passing a horrified looking Tonks and interrupted Harry: "I think it is time we all calm down and get some fresh air. Molly, will you take care of Harry? Hermione, you look like you need a rest. Sirius will you come with me, I want a word." As he shunted Sirius out of the kitchen, he added over his shoulder to Tonks: "And, Tonks, would you please be so kind to help mop up this" he indicated Snape's limp form "I heard you are rather good at that?"

As Remus paused to say this, Sirius could look at Hermione for a moment, who had made to walk out of the other door, in order to get to her room. When their eyes met, he was surprised again to see a warm glow in hers that he had never hoped to find there.


End file.
